


Metamorphosis

by Cryptoad



Series: His Dark Knight’s Materials [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Body Horror, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Non Consensual Daemon Touching, Resurrection, Torture, its more like daemon horror, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 08:30:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17240921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptoad/pseuds/Cryptoad
Summary: “But even more surprising than that is the fact the Joker has a daemon.She’s huge, sitting so heavily on his shoulder that his whole body slumps to the side and it looks as though only the bonds are keeping him up. And she’s ugly - as strange and terrible as Bruce would expect from the daemon of a monster like him.And then Bruce realises - that’s not the Joker’s daemon, it’s Jason’s, it’s Araceli, and a whole new kind of horror slides through him.“Jason’s daemon comes back different. She comes back wrong.





	Metamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> Purely self indulgent rubbish because I love daemon AUs and there just aren’t enough of them.

Jason’s daemon settles early, most crime alley kids do. She’s a small brown bird, nondescript. No chance of calling her beautiful but Jason doesn’t care about that and neither does she. Beautiful daemons get you noticed - small and easily hidden daemons are much more practical on the streets.

Some of the street rat’s daemons never change. Araceli used to, when Jason was small, flitting between forms like a dance: a rat, a bird, once even a fox when a kid with a beautiful silver snake daemon had tried to snatch her out of the air and she had turned on him, teeth and claws, and made him regret it.

She settles the day that Catherine Todd dies. When Jason finds his mother slumped in their shitty little bathroom, body already cool and stiff where she’s sprawled against the chipped porcelain at the base of their sink. She’s wearing her pale pink nightgown, stained with blood and vomit and god knows what else, and her legs are curled up beneath her, already marble pale and shot through with jagged blue veins. There’s dust all over them. A fine layer of gold that looks grotesquely beautiful spread across such a morbid scene. It collects on her thighs and the rucked up hem of her nightie. As if Danny had been laid across her lap when it had happened.

Jason wonders if he had been scared. Wonders if his mother had been. Wonders if either of them had even known what was happening through the haze of drugs and alcohol. It isn’t the first time that he’s seen a body, or the scattering of golden dust that usually goes with one, and it won’t be the last, but something slides across his skin nonetheless. Something cold and sick and frightened.

Araceli presses against his neck, pulse to pulse, her tiny heart beating fast fast fast. Jason’s own pulse is throbbing in his throat, hard enough that it feels as though she should be moving with the force of it. The rest of him, in contrast, is strangely cold - empty almost. As if all of his emotion has been sucked out of him. As if he’s pouring everything out of his own heart and into Araceli through that little point of connection - feathers against skin.

Later, when they’re huddled in Jason’s almost-empty bedroom, freezing beneath a threadbare blanket, Jason asks, “is this it?”

It isn’t a surprise really - the little brown bird is Araceli’s favourite form - but somehow Jason expected more. Despite everything he expected something special.

“I think so,” Araceli whispers back, voice smaller than Jason has ever heard it. She fluffs up her feathers, looking down at herself with a critical eye. Jason looks too but he doesn’t see anything special except for, when she turns just so, the glitter of golden dust that’s still caught in her feathers.

 

***

 

No one has ever seen Batman’s daemon. He has one - he isn’t an alien like superman - but it’s small and easily hidden and he’s learnt to keep it safe just as he’s learnt all of the other skills that come with being a vigilante.

Still, when Batman’s gloved hand closes over the back of his neck, having somehow slipped past Araceli who is flying in tight circles above him, supposedly keeping watch, Jason looks for his daemon automatically.

She isn’t there. A chill trembles through Jason, even though not being able to see someone’s daemon isn’t exactly unusual. Most street rats keep theirs hidden unless they’re big enough for protection. And Araceli, although clearly annoyed with herself, doesn’t seem particularly perturbed. Not like he would expect if the vigilante’s daemon wasn’t somewhere nearby.

So the chill turns quickly to anger and Jason struggles in the vigilante’s grip as Araceli flutters in increasingly tight circles above them. Batman spares her a fleeting glance before turning his stern gaze back on Jason.

“Let go of me,” Jason snarls, furious, struggling against the gloved hand.

“I don’t think so.” Batman’s voice is flat, affectless. It’s not how Jason had imagined meeting his hero during all those cold, lonely nights - Batman’s hand a vice on Jason’s neck, a tire iron in Jason’s.

Araceli gives up on circling, ducking low to tuck herself beneath Jason’s jaw instead. Jason isn’t particularly proud of the obvious show of fear but he’s glad to have her near, have her warmth against his skin.

“What are you going to do with me?” He asks.

Batman doesn’t answer.

 

***

 

Jason sees her, for the first time, as Bruce Wayne’s daemon, before he learns that Batman and Bruce are one and the same. He doesn’t actually see her at first because she really _is_ small and the dark brown of her wings is hard to spot against the lapel of Bruce’s shirt. When Araceli, who is as sullen as Jason and more shy about it, catches sight of her, she flickers her antennae welcomingly but doesn’t flutter over to them like Jason expects.

Dick’s daemon is not so reserved.

Danior swings towards them on nimble hands, bright eyes fixed on Jason’s daemon. Close, he’s too close, and Jason flinches back automatically, suddenly afraid that the daemon will touch him. He doesn’t of course, because apparently even circus freaks like Dick and Danior still have boundaries. 

“Dani!” Dick scolds and Jason flinches again. He hasn’t thought about Danny and his mother in what feels like a long time and he doesn’t particularly like the reminder. When Dick holds out his hand Jason eyes it suspiciously, tucking his own hands up under his armpits. Dick just smiles.

“Sorry,” he says kindly. “I guess it’s a bit much at once isn’t it?”

Jason doesn’t reply but Araceli hops down his arm, eying the other daemon curiously. Danior reaches out one small, black-fingered hand and to Jason’s surprise Araceli hops close enough for him to touch.

Dick grins.

 

***

 

Batman keeps Effy in a reinforced Kevlar pod, Jason learns, once he has finally convinced Bruce to let him don the Robin costume.

Dick is sitting nearby, already dressed up in his Nightwing gear, watching Jason with an odd, unreadable expression on his face. Danior is perched on his shoulder, tail curled around the back of his neck, one hand resting lightly on Dick’s cheek. There’s something tense in the way they’re both holding themselves but Jason is almost too excited to notice.

“What do you think?” Jason asks, twisting to give both Batman and Nightwing a good view. Araceli swoops in crazy loops above him. She’s giddy with excitement, letting out little chirps of happiness whenever her flightpath brings her close to Jason again.

Batman nods. He’s different once the cowl is on, more serious, but Jason can tell that he’s pleased. On the other hand, Dick smiles, but doesn’t seem particularly pleased at all. Danior is stiff and silent, completely unlike he normally behaves, and when Araceli tugs at his fur on a low-flying swoop he doesn’t take a playful swing at her like Jason expects.

Araceli drops onto Jason’s shoulder. The mood has shifted, subtly, but neither Jason nor Araceli are stupid. They can read tension in the air.

“Dick?”

“I think you look wonderful Master Jason,” says Alfred. Annie tilts her head in agreement but doesn’t say anything - Annie never does. Apparently it’s impolite for daemons to speak to people other than their own. Jason doesn’t really know how he feels about that. But Araceli likes Annie, and Jason likes Alfred, and it wasn’t exactly common for daemons to make conversation with humans on the streets either.

At Wayne Manor things are slightly different though. Which is why Jason finds it strange that Dick and Danior are so silent now.

Dick stands and, finally, his smile seems more genuine. “It might take some getting used to,” he says, but he claps a hand on Jason’s shoulder and when Araceli tilts her head Danior runs one black finger across the feathers there.

Jason grins, glances at Batman, who has already secreted Effy’s pod away. Part of the benefit of concealing her, besides keeping her out of harm's way, is that it makes Bruce even harder to read, but Jason imagines her fluttering her wings excitedly anyway.

“Ready?” Bruce asks and his voice has dropped into the low, harsh growl that Batman affects.

Jason glances up at Dick. Grins.

“I was born ready.”

 

***

 

The Joker doesn’t have a daemon. He isn’t an alien like superman. Nor is his daemon simply far away, like Al-Ghul. Araceli can tell as soon as they’re close and Jason can feel her fear, a sharp spike of adrenaline that has his blood pumping, a bitter metallic tang in his mouth. His own fear rises to meet it. A rip-current coursing between them.

Araceli cries out when the first blow falls, voice high and clear as a bell, tumbling crazily through the air. Joker swings. Hits again and pain lances through Jason’s chest. Araceli falters, falls, and Joker snatches her out of the air.

He isn’t wearing any gloves. 

For a long, suspended moment Jason doesn’t feel anything beyond the odd sensation of something brushing against Araceli’s feathers and the agonising pain in his own chest. Then sensation seems to hit him all at once. It feels as though the Joker has reached deep inside him, as if his greasy, filthy hands are touching something essential to his very being. As if he’s reached through the cracked ribs in Jason’s chest and brushed against the muscle of his heart.

Jason screams. He can’t do anything else. Bright white obscures his vision, rings in his ears. All he can feel is the Joker’s hands around his daemon. Around his soul. Then the Joker squeezes and if Jason had thought it was bad before, it’s unbearable now, indescribable agony.

The Joker brings the crowbar down again, almost casually, with his free hand, and Jason doesn’t even feel the impact, so consumed with fear and pain and revulsion. He can’t breathe. 

Araceli is making frightened little noises of pain. Jason can’t even hear them. He feels them, in his bones, in his gut, where Joker’s hands are still lodged.

It hurts. It hurts so badly that Jason can’t think of anything else. His world narrowed down to his daemon and the Joker. Even the crowbar, as it reigns blows down upon him, is an afterthought. 

When the haze finally clears from his vision, Jason is alone. The Joker is gone. There’s still pain: sharp agony through his entire body, a deeper, tearing ache in his core, but the physical blows have ceased at least. With difficulty, Jason manages to lift his head. Looks around him, struggling to see anything besides blurry shapes through his ruined eyes. Araceli must be nearby. She has to be. Jason searches for her desperately, broken fingers scraping against the concrete floor as he drags his aching limbs into action. He wants to draw her close, press her tight against his skin and overwrite the Joker’s awful touch.

But she isn’t here. Jason knows that really - can feel it in the deep, painful ache in his gut, the awful tearing stretch as their bond is pulled to its limit. With an odd sort of detached concern, Jason wonders if he will survive their bond severing. He hopes he doesn’t. Hopes that he dies of his wounds before that even happens. It’s awful. The sensation of being utterly alone. Of knowing that no matter what happens he will probably never see her again.

He’s screaming without realising it. Doesn’t hear the ticking over the ragged sound of his own despair. And then, abruptly, the screaming stops. And so does Jason.

 

***

 

When Jason comes back to life, Araceli doesn’t come with him. Jason doesn’t remember much of that time afterwards - which is probably for the best - but he knows that he had wandered around, daemonless, a living zombie, until the al Ghuls found him.

They had put him in the pit and life had returned to him and so had Araceli.

He bursts out of the pit a mad thing. Full of rage and pain and not knowing why, barely knowing who he is. The empty, aching hole where Araceli hadn’t been is full again. Full of rage and pain that isn’t his, yet is at the same time. She bursts out of the pit with him too. Wings that are too wide, dripping with green liquid from the pit. Wicked talons shimmering in the low light. Huge head turned towards the sky, reptilian eyes wide with fear.

Jason is too wild to really feel anything when he first lays eyes on her. On the huge, ugly beast that’s taken the place of his daemon. There’s a sliver of relief because she’s back, and she’s here, and he can feel their bond strong and whole between them. There’s fear there as well, once Jason has dragged himself up onto the dusty ledge of the pit and his daemon has dropped down heavily beside him. Her beak, hovering above him as she cocks her head to eye him curiously, is viciously sharp. 

And he doesn’t recognise her.

He can feel her through their bond. He knows that it’s her. And yet, when she ducks her head to press against his cheek he can’t help but flinch away.

She’s hurt. Even with her strange new body, she has the same mannerisms and Jason can tell from the set of her wings, the tilt of her head. But Jason is too wild and hurt himself to care. 

Then a hand lands on his head and he looks up into Talia al Ghul’s smooth, pitiless face. She smiles.

“Hello Beloved.” And her voice is soft and deadly, a viper in the nest. Her hand smooths through Jason’s hair, trails over his heaving chest. Jason is still beneath her predatory gaze. “What a beautiful daemon.”

Talia’s silver fox daemon circles Araceli cautiously, scenting the air, hackles raised. Araceli eyes him through glittering black marbles. But Talia seems unconcerned when she reaches out and trails the backs of her fingers over the downy feathers on Araceli’s breast.

Jason tenses. Expects pain. Expects the lurching sensation of violation.

But as Talia trails delicate fingers through the gleaming feathers, Jason doesn’t feel anything at all.

 

***

 

The first time Bruce sees the Red Hood he doesn’t have a daemon. There is one, of course. Something huge and ugly and terrible, if you believe the rumours. And Bruce puts a lot of stock in rumours. There’s usually at least some truth to them.

Still, Bruce doesn’t see it as he chases after the mysterious figure. Dick is just behind him, Danior leaping nimbly across the structure of the building, always faster than Bruce would expect. Neither Danior nor Effy seem unusually disturbed by the villain, so Bruce isn’t too concerned by the lack of an obvious daemon.

Then, abruptly, there isn’t a lack of a daemon. Bruce’s cable closes around the Red Hood’s ankles. Red Hood twists, a knife in hand, as if to cut the rope, but he doesn’t get the chance. As if from nowhere a huge, dark shape appears. Bigger than even Bruce could have expected. For a moment it eclipses the sight of the villain entirely, a hideous shadow.

Behind him, Bruce can feel Dick stop short. Hears Danior’s startled cry. Bruce’s own fear spears through him, shocking in its intensity. There’s no reason for it - Batman has dealt with plenty of ugly and dangerous daemons in his time - but something about the sight of this daemon sends chills across his skin.

The cable snaps beneath the power of her beak and the Red Hood disappears from sight over the side of the building. His daemon beats her huge wings, bearing her heavily up into the air, circles once, then disappears seamlessly into the darkness. For s moment Bruce wonders if he had truly seen her. Only Dick, panting at his side, convinces him that the experience hadn’t been in his head.

 

***

 

Later, as he digs through the sodden earth towards his son’s grave, Bruce can’t help but think of that terrible daemon. If it is Jason - and Bruce prays, _God_ , he prays, that it isn’t - the small, easily hidden, street rat daemon is clearly gone. Replaced by the hideous beast that Bruce and Dick had seen last time they fought. It’s not something Bruce has heard of before, someone’s daemon changing like that. But Bruce has experienced a lot of things and he supposes that, implausible as it is, it isn’t _impossible_.

If someone’s personality has changed enough, he supposes there’s no reason why their daemon shouldn’t change along with them. Bruce doesn’t particularly like what that says about whoever the Red Hood really is. He prays, again, that his son is safely encased with his coffin, still buried beneath the ground.

Effy flutters uncomfortably against his neck where she’s hiding from the rain.

“It isn’t him,” she says, so calm, so sure, against his ear. Bruce wishes he could feel like that. His own heart is pounding so hard in his chest he fears it might leap out. 

At the dull thunk of metal against wood, Bruce’s heart beats even harder. He hops out of the digger, the bitter taste of acid on his tongue, the crowbar - and isn’t that ironic? - gripped in his hand.

There’s light, flickering weakly in the darkness. Suddenly Alfred is beside him. There’s a lamp in his hand, held high, casting orange light across the too-small grave. Annie is at his heels. Her ears are pressed back against her head - the only visible sign of the Butler’s distress.

“Do you need more light?” Alfred asks.

“No, I can see fine.”

Effy flutters away from him as he approaches the grave, circles, then lands softly on the top of Annie’s head. It’s an unusual display of affection for either daemon but Annie doesn’t shake her off.

The crowbar feels too heavy in Bruce’s hands. What is he doing? If he’s wrong he’ll have dug up his own son for nothing. But if he’s right…

It doesn’t take as much effort as Bruce expects to pry the lid open. Alfred lifts the lamp. The light spills out over...Jason?

Alfred sighs. Annie’s whole body visibly relaxes but Effy only twitches her antennae suspiciously.

“Well, there you have it.” The lamp lowers. “He’s still at rest.”

“No. He isn’t.”

Bruce’s heart isn’t pounding anymore. It feels almost as though it’s crystallised, calcified, turned to stone in his chest. Effy lands on his shoulder, twitching agitatedly and when Bruce reaches in to the hole in the ground and lifts a plastic replica of his son from the coffin she says: “That’s not flesh.”

Because it isn’t Jason.

 

***

 

Jason - the real Jason? - kicks open the cupboard door and Bruce comes face-to-face with the Joker. For a moment Bruce can only stare in surprise and horror. The Joker is slumped in the rickety wooden chair that he’s bound to, which in itself is a surprise. But even more surprising than that is the fact the Joker has a daemon.

She’s huge, sitting so heavily on his shoulder that his whole body slumps to the side and it looks as though only the bonds are keeping him up. And she’s ugly - as strange and terrible as Bruce would expect from the daemon of a monster like him.

And then Bruce realises - that’s not the Joker’s daemon, it’s Jason’s, it’s Araceli, and a whole new kind of horror slides through him.

She’s touching him; wicked talons pricking through the purple material of his jacket, staining the fabric dark with beads of blood. And worse than that - her other foot curves around his neck. Scaly skin against skin. Her talons dig in there too and crimson blood trickles from the wound down the long white column of the Joker’s throat and she’s _touching_ him.

Bruce feels ill. Hot and cold, prickling over skin that’s suddenly too tight. He can hear the Joker’s taunts in his head - before Bruce had put him in a full body cast - hear how he’d gloated about violating them. How he’d caught Araceli out of the air. How he’d enjoyed how Jason had cried out as he crushed her in his fist. How he’d picked her little broken body up in his bare hands - once Jason was too weak and battered to protest - and taken her away so that Jason was utterly alone at the end. How she had burst into a shower of golden dust in the Joker’s hand and he had known that it was over.

Bruce has to swallow convulsively against the bile in his throat. Tastes it, hot and sour, on his tongue. It’s a familiar sensation. Thinking about Jason, or Jason’s death, is like ripping open a festering wound. All blood and pus and bile. Even now, even though Jason is alive, Bruce can’t help but feel breathless with longing for the Jason that was.

Jason himself seems not to even notice. Both he and Araceli are watching him with matching blank-eyed stares. Bruce can’t glean anything from the flat, white lenses of Jason’s domino, or the equally flat, black lense of Araceli’s eye - smooth and round as a marble and with just as little emotion. Neither of them seem perturbed by the Joker’s closeness. There’s no horror. No disgust.

Bruce wonders if Talia trained the reaction out of them. Imagines Araceli enduring endless stranger’s touches, imagines both of them slowly desensitised to something that should be visceral. Or perhaps the horror of the Joker’s attack left them numb to anything else. Or maybe Araceli is just wrong now. Maybe her transformation has made her something different, has stretched their bond beyond repair.

It sends chills through Bruce regardless and he can feel Effy, in her protective pod, fluttering uncomfortably.

Then the Joker looks up. Araceli has to shift her grip and her talons press more firmly into the bare flesh. Blood trickles with renewed life. The Joker doesn’t seem to notice, seemingly just as comfortable with the huge daemon on his shoulder as if she were his own and Bruce feels another surge of bile. He’s glad the cowl covers his face. He doesn’t need any of the room’s occupants to see the pain he knows is painted there.

“Gotta give the boy points,” Joker cackles. Neither Jason or Araceli react as the villain shuffles - with difficulty, Araceli really is huge - out of the cupboard. “He came all the way back from the dead to make this shindig happen.”

Jason isn’t looking at the Joker, he’s staring at Bruce. Araceli is too. Being the focus of someone else’s daemon is unsettling in a way that Bruce has rarely experienced and he finds he can’t meet either of their gazes. So he almost misses the moment that Araceli lifts heavily off of the Joker’s shoulders, huge wings spread wide and dark and Jason whips his pistol across the back of the Joker’s head with enough force to knock him to the ground.

There’s an almost physical sensation of relief now that Araceli is no longer touching the clown. Jason’s daemon shouldn’t touch anyone but Jason.

Araceli doesn’t touch the Joker again and she doesn’t touch Bruce either. Not when Jason points the gun at Bruce. Not when Bruce makes it explode in his hand. Not when the bomb is set. Not even when the Joker is pinning Bruce to the floor, cackling, struggling to stop him from disarming their death sentence.

She sits heavily in Jason’s lap, pressed tight against his chest. As if they’ve already accepted the end. As if they’re determined, this time, to go out together.

But Bruce isn’t going to let that happen. He can’t.

The timer ticks closer to zero. Bruce lunges. Hands close around feathers and flesh. For a moment Bruce swears that Araceli is small enough to fit in his grasping fist. Then the bomb explodes and Bruce throws up his cape and prays - _prays_ \- that it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly the daemon names don’t mean much beyond the fact that I thought they sounded nice but if you’re interested:
> 
> Jason - Araceli, a Spanish/Latin name meaning “the altar in heaven”. She is a Brown Shrike. When Jason is resurrected she returns as a Lappet-faced vulture.
> 
> Bruce - Effy (short for Elspeth), a Scottish version of Elizabeth meaning “chosen by God”. She is a Hawk Moth.
> 
> Dick - Danior, a Romani name meaning “born with teeth”. He is a squirrel monkey.
> 
> Alfred - Annie (a diminutive form of the name Anne), a Hebrew name meaning “grace of God”. She is a German Shepard Dog.
> 
> These are all according to the internet so I can’t swear by their accuracy.
> 
> I just want to add that I actually like vultures a lot even though I’ve been quite cruel to Araceli in this fic. They have a bad rep but they’re very important for the ecosystem and are super interesting birds!
> 
> Hopefully you enjoyed! Drop me a kudos or comment if you did! :)


End file.
